It was announced in a Thursday statement that two top executives would be leaving the BlackBerry maker following a bleak earnings report as the embattled Canadian telecommunications company seeks a solution to its financial woes.

Senior Vice President Alan Brenner will leave Research in Motion after a transition period and will follow Alistair Mitchell, a vice president of the company's BBM service, who has already exited, reports Bloomberg.

The departures come after RIM's fourth quarter earnings call last week that saw the resignations of former co-CEO Jim Balsillie, CTO David Yach and global COO Jim Rowan.

The BlackBerry maker was hit with a billion dollar sequential drop in quarterly revenues with an estimate miss so substantial it caused current President and CEO Thorsten Heins to put a halt to all future "qualitative guidance."

RIM is said to be weighing its strategic options which may include a focus shift from hardware to software and services. The new cross-platform BlackBerry Mobile Fusion software was released on Tuesday, offering mobile device management to enterprise customers that not only use BlackBerry handsets, but iOS and Android devices as well.

It seems that the company is not looking to exit the consumer market altogether, however, as Managing Director of Global Sales and Regional Marketing Patrick Spence said RIM is looking to "build on [its] strengths to go after targeted consumer segments." Part of that plan includes pushing current BlackBerry 7 smartphones to gain new customers ahead of an already-delayed BlackBerry 10 launch.

Dismal handset sales drove BlackBerry's market share down 14 percent year-to-year in the last quarter of 2011, leaving the company with only 8.2 percent of the global smartphone market.

Competitors Apple and Android handset makers have all but taken over the mobile marketplace, now accounting for some 80 percent of the important U.S. market. RIM is even being outperformed by Apple in its home country, previously one of the last bastions of hope for the Waterloo, Ontario company.

Heins said that a sale of the company and its holdings is not off the table, but it's not the "main direction" RIM is looking toward. He did concede that the company is looking into joint ventures, though no specific partners have been announced.

I hope these execs have been nicely compensated for their accomplishments.

I'm sure... I heard that the entire staff accompanied them to the parking lot waving pitchforks and burning faggots. This was done after a farewell party outside the front door that included a barrel of tar and a several feather pillows. It's heart-warming to see how everyone sped them on their way.

"That (the) world is moving so quickly that iOS is already amongst the older mobile operating systems in active development today." — The Verge

It's a shame that RIM has completely ceded the entire smartphone market to its competitors in 5 short years. A comeback? Not likely. They would be better off if the just sold some android phones. They have lost too much mindshare to ever get it back.

RIM is probably hoping Steve Ballmer will get out his chequebook, it is highly likely that they are already talking.

I imagine MS won't want to pay for the company but will just pay RIM to be a partner like Nokia, a lot cheaper and less risk, it will depend on how much value MS puts on RIMs existing relationships with business customers.

The question is, what is in it for Microsoft to partner with RIM? How will it keep RIM from flushing down the toilet?

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottkrk

RIM is probably hoping Steve Ballmer will get out his chequebook, it is highly likely that they are already talking.

I imagine MS won't want to pay for the company but will just pay RIM to be a partner like Nokia, a lot cheaper and less risk, it will depend on how much value MS puts on RIMs existing relationships with business customers.

Originally Posted by Granmastak: Labor unions managed to kill manufacturing a long time ago with their unreasonable demands. Now the people they were trying to protect, are out of a job.

RIM had a good run but the party's over and it's time to close shop and move on. If the CEO was a product person (instead of a manager) they'd have a chance. Product oriented CEOs are rare and critical to a company's survival, as RIM is finding out. No doubt Apple knows this and is taking measures now to maintain its lead in creativity and innovation going forward in a post SJ world.

There may be little chance RIM can survive as they are today into the future, but they're still a billion dollar company. The problem I see, even with the new ceo, is that they're hanging onto the past at a point where they should have a focused plan for the future. They do have a descent business in South America, Africa and the Middle East, but even in these places, technology continues to move forward - seemingly without RIM following.

And of course you have the boneheads on Wall Street and the even more incompetent people in DC who think BB's are still cutting edge and are hesitant to change. That's what has driven me crazy for the past few years - RIM was floundering and the writing was on the wall for them, but the Street seemed to ignore that and not only kept money flowing into RIM, but was not valuing Apple as it should have been. Obviously that's changed some in the past year, but that kind of fiscal incompetence by the Street speaks volumes about the real lack of understanding by the a lot of financial "geniuses".

I'm sure there is some value to RIM's IP, but even here they have things that others have worked around or created new and alternative tech to do what RIM thought was impossible. My bets, as I have said before, are on the fact that they won't make a release of the new 10 os or new phones this year and quite possibly even next year. They have nothing new, nothing novel to show and that will kill them even more if they release another product that doesn't come close to competing.

Just think how fast Samsung is releasing new Android handsets - not that I'm a fan, but it should be possible for a company like RIM to push out something new and novel at least once a year. I predict they'll keep losing market share and money for the next two years before they liquidate and if they're lucky become nothing more than an App on iOS and Android.

It's sad what's happening to RIM. Sure, they could/should have foreseen this. But they're not the only company who was whiplashed into poor decisions by the iPhone.

Many, many people in Waterloo are dependent on this company. The industry needs more than two or three strong players. Wishing them anything short of a comeback is not just heartless, pointless but in fact counter-productive to our interests as consumers. But being short-sighted is why many people here are nickel-and-dime pundits and not real engineers.

And of course you have the boneheads on Wall Street and the even more incompetent people in DC who think BB's are still cutting edge and are hesitant to change. That's what has driven me crazy for the past few years - RIM was floundering and the writing was on the wall for them, but the Street seemed to ignore that and not only kept money flowing into RIM, but was not valuing Apple as it should have been. Obviously that's changed some in the past year, but that kind of fiscal incompetence by the Street speaks volumes about the real lack of understanding by the a lot of financial "geniuses".

Are we reading the same stock symbol? RIMM's price nosedived in 2008 and has been dropping ever since, even in years when their sales went up. It seems like Wall Street realized that they were in trouble and has really given up in the last year or so.

LOL. I almost feel bad for them. But then I remember how awesome the iPhone is and then I kinda don't.

Especially when you consider how awful the storm was. That ws supposed to be the answer to the iPhone!
I helped a friend get her contacts out of it a couple of years ago and the whole time I used that thing I was thinking, are these guys on crack? That thing had a touchscreen you were supposed to push down on.

Are we reading the same stock symbol? RIMM's price nosedived in 2008 and has been dropping ever since, even in years when their sales went up. It seems like Wall Street realized that they were in trouble and has really given up in the last year or so.

I agree, the only one's who were hopeful of RIM return was RIM itself and maybe a few companies who seem to put all their faith in RIM secure email technology. Everyone else had written them off. The only reason it stock rebounded a few times was some stupid analysis trying to manipulate the stock in the short turn. The sure bet on RIM was to short them all the way down.